David Huang

Every company will become a portfolio of AI brains. Almost none know how to build one. @latentius and I joined @a16z @speedrun to build @ThirdbrainLabs -- the post-training layer that turns your data and expertise into models you actually own. Data in. Your model out. Continuously improved. No heavy consultancy or bundling different data and training solutions - it's about time we had a scalable, technical platform delivering specialized intelligence for all.

@ArtinBogdanov @sunapp_ai @a16z @speedrun 🔥

Today, we’re opening @sunapp_ai to the public. We’ve been building this not so quietly during @a16z @speedrun. Audio used to be something you search for. Now, you generate it. Podcasts. Audiobooks. Courses. Any topic. Any length. Ask questions as you listen. And if you don’t know what to generate, SUN knows what to play. This is a new era of audio. Download it and experience the magic! Link below 👇

The most heretical thing I believe to be absolutely true: the world is actually full of great future founders Decels believe there is a finite # good startups We at YC *know with direct experience* it is actually about finding the builder founders who could be great and funding them as early as possible, and giving them a community in which to thrive

Final reminder - last week to apply: A16Z SPEEDRUN ALPHA is for recent grads and college students who want to start a company but are pre-idea / pre-product details: - $20K equity-free upfront to start building - up to $250K investment when you finalize - automatic final interview for a16z speedrun, with up to $1M investment - 8-week, in-person experience with a kickoff retreat, founder AMAs, and small-group dinners alongside the a16z speedrun community - targeted to early-career highly technical founders We stayed Alpha bc its a time of great change in the startup community and in the job market. And we know that most of the best founders don’t start with a perfect idea. They start with curiosity, talent, and the willingness to build things until something clicks. Some of the most important companies of the last decade started this way: - tinkering with side projects - hacking on open source - building weird prototypes with friends - exploring a space before the opportunity was obvious The goal of Speedrun Alpha is simple: find exceptional builders before the idea is fully formed. Instead of asking you to show up with a polished pitch deck, we give you: - time - community - mentorship - and just enough capital to start experimenting. Just show up with technical ambition and curiosity. You spend the summer with us on the a16z Speedrun team exploring ideas, building prototypes, and talking to users. By the end, if something interesting emerges, we help you turn it into a real company. The kinds of founders we’re looking for tend to look like this: - engineers who can ship fast - builders who have shipped side projects before - hackers who like learning new systems quickly - people who would probably start companies eventually anyway We’re intentionally targeting recent grads and college students as a bet on the future. If that sounds like you — or someone you know — this is the last call.

Building systems that default to Steering instead of Autonomous Agents is the MO for enterprises and personal use cases. AI you truly own (data, weights, execution access). There will always be use cases for autonomous agents but we need significantly more products and discussions in the anti-autonomous agent space.

@simile_ai Intriguing

Excited to iterate among philosopher-builders at @cosmos_inst

Human beings are called to be co-workers in the work of creation, not merely passive consumers of content generated by artificial technology. Our dignity lies in our ability to reflect, choose freely, love unconditionally, and enter into authentic relationships with others. Recognizing and safeguarding what characterizes the human person and guarantees their balanced growth is essential for establishing an adequate framework to manage the consequences of artificial intelligence. vatican.va/content/leo-xi…

Do the people using the formula "X isn't just Y, it's Z" every other sentence realize that everybody else can see where this is coming from

I’m beyond excited to announce our MIT Press book on Neuroevolution! An HTML version is now available for free on neuroevolutionbook.com, with a print edition coming out later in 2026. Real intelligence is not static; it evolves. For decades, the field of neuroevolution has pursued this necessary adaptability. Our book chronicles its development, from early concepts to its modern integration with deep learning and reinforcement learning, exploring its potential for understanding the origins of intelligence and its real-world applications. And the companion webpage is more than just a book site! It comes equipped with interactive demos, videos, exercises, and tutorials to allow everyone to experience neuroevolution in action. Check it out and let us know what you think! It was a pleasure to work on this book over the last 4+ years with David (@hardmaru), Yujin (@yujin_tang), and Risto. We are incredibly proud of the result and look forward to celebrating! We hope to connect with many of you at NeurIPS. We are very grateful to Melanie Mitchell (@MelMitchell1) who provided a fantastic foreword. To quote her: “The next big thing in AI is coming, and I suspect that neuroevolution will be a major part of it”. We think so too!

Announcing our Series B 🐟 sakana.ai/series-b

@logangraham Something culturing...

GSV You're Absolutely Right!

Westwordly

@RichardSSutton 👏

My acceptance speech at the Turing award ceremony: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. The main idea of reinforcement learning is that a machine might discover what to do on its own, without being told, from its own experience, by trial and error. As far as I know, the first person to propose this was Alan Turing in 1947, which makes it particularly gratifying and humbling to receive this award in his name for reviving this essential but still nascent idea. I have three people that I would like to particularly thank. First, Andy Barto. As my PhD supervisor he taught me my whole approach to science, and in particular instilled in me an appreciation of scholarship and craft, and of the great breath of prior work. Second, I would like to thank Oliver Selfridge, my other main mentor; sadly, now deceased. Oliver taught me how keeping ideas simple can be the boldest of all ambitions. Third, I want to thank Martha Steenstrup, my life partner and intellectual sparring partner. She keeps me honest and grounded. Finally, I also want to thank the University of Alberta, which has been an ideal environment for me and for reinforcement learning research these past 22 years. These three people and my university have reinforced in me the ambition to have ideas that matter, without getting too full of myself about it. They taught me that the quest for better ideas is serious, but is best approached playfully, with humility, kindness, and optimism. For this I am eternally grateful. I would also like to thank all of you for being here and for celebrating the pursuit of intellectual excellence. Thank you very much.

@markoinny Good call!

Said so a while ago x.com/markoinny/stat…

@markscianna @forward_deploy Congratz Mark!

I’m thrilled to share that @forward_deploy has raised a $45M Fund 2 for mission-critical startups! We’re backed by the Palantir Mafia: a motley crew of 150+ operators, hackers, designers, spies, machine learning scientists, classification experts, government contracting officers, nuclear engineers, and founders. Also participating: AngelList Systematic Fund, @BainCapVC, Dauntless Ventures, @garrytan, GREE LP Fund, @invariantes, @MultipleCapital, Norton Holdings, and two undisclosed large institutions 🏦🏦. We invest in startups modernizing critical American industries including defense, energy, and manufacturing — the core infrastructure that underpins our national prosperity. It’s true that “software is eating the world”, but these trillion dollar markets have had relatively little innovation. It’s time. 🇺🇸 We invest in talent mafias such as Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX where we have strong relationships and high conviction in the people and culture. We've seen what extreme talent, velocity, and determination can achieve. Born from Palantir’s Forward Deployed Engineering culture, we back hardcore founders that move fast and run through walls to achieve their missions. We run with them and accelerate their momentum. Huge thanks to the founders and LPs who’ve given us their time, trust, and partnership. We’re fired up to build the future with you. 🔊 Turn your headphones up, this hits hard! Let’s go! 🚀

@fchollet Right on. When tutoring I've found it more effective to first learn the pupil's interests, in which language/analogy to then express lesson ideas

Over the past few weeks, my 4 y.o. somehow taught himself to read by playing Minecraft. I had previously been unsuccessful at teaching him to read syllables & words, beyond just memorizing the alphabet (which he has known for a while) The only problem in education is motivation.

@Citrini7 Oxymoronic

how would you describe the emotion associated with being correct about an earnings/econ print and then having price go the exact opposite direction you expected? is there a succinct word for this?

@Citrini7 Doublethink ftw

today is the 10 year anniversary of the first trade i ever placed (i got destroyed on it). i’m slightly older and wiser now but one thing holds true: the rarest combination of attributes is someone who is capable of holding two conflicting views in their head.

Who is excited about the @jeffclune show dropping?! Here are some more of my favourite parts including a commentary on AI Safety at the end.